


to burn at this world's end

by LocketShoru



Series: Aeternum -Iridescence- [1]
Category: Saint Seiya, 聖闘士星矢: 冥王神話 | Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas
Genre: (the catgirl kind), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Anthropomorphic, F/M, Fem!Minos, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Gore, Pregnancy, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22176292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LocketShoru/pseuds/LocketShoru
Summary: [Aeternum I] Ten years after the world fell apart, Albafica finds a girl who doesn't seem to know what world she's living in, that he's been living in for a decade. A few months later, they get their first good break after the world coming down on everything either of them knew.
Relationships: Griffon Minos/Pisces Albafica
Series: Aeternum -Iridescence- [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596289
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	to burn at this world's end

**Author's Note:**

> Aight so this is part one of Aeternum, which has been in the works for about a month and a half. The theme album is Aeterno -Rewind- by Aviators. I have a map of the area and I know where everyone is. There was worldbuilding involved here. Hell yea.

He slammed his shoulder against the door, scales already bruising underneath the remains of his shirt. The oxygen level was low on his monitor, but if he could get inside… He stepped back and then forward again, throwing his shoulder into the same spot. He’d been ramming it for a few minutes now, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. Finally, it gave way and swung open, sending him tumbling facefirst into the dusty interior.

“In here,” he hissed, voice muffled by the murk on the floor. The room felt cooler, a little, the air clearer, if a little stale. His monitor, still glowing on his arm with its cracked display, registered the oxygen levels as much higher, the radiation levels lower than he’d seen them in months. His companion followed him in, quick but unsteady, pushing the door closed behind her. Her tail weaved around her knees, twisting with anxiety at the hem of her skirt.

“It’ll be better if we can get deeper into here,” he murmured, pushing himself back to his feet. He opened his mouth, ever so slightly, tasting the air. Nothing but dust, barely even decay, and his monitor was registering the radiation at levels so far low they had to be the luckiest people in the entire city. 

“Do you think it’s safe?” she whispered, her voice slightly less shrill than it had been before. 

“Nothing’s been here in a long time,” he answered. “I’ll protect you if there’s anything. Best we can do is just hope I’m right.” He held out his hand, patched with scales and webbing between each finger, and she took it, her claws birdscale and gentle with featherdown. She stepped closer, her ribs brushing his hip, and they moved inward. He took a breath, and allowed the fins that ran down his shoulder blades and back to rise to their full height, in a parody of opening wings. And he let them glow, subterranean-river blue, casting dull light on the room that they now had made their sanctum, for however long it would be safe to do so.

The room was dusty, but not cloyingly so: it simply had been disused and left to its own devices. He didn’t much expect there to be anything hiding - even if there was, the radiation levels meant that they might be able to get food out of the deal. At one point, this looked to have been an office. A desk was pushed to one side, and had been done roughly so, evidenced by the black skid marks trailing out from under it. Several chairs lay strewn across the room in varying states of destroyed. The floorspace was barely detritus, an inch of dust covering the tiles and the plastic remains of fake plants scattered across the room, as if they’d fallen from shelves.

“That’s a lot of dust,” she remarked, clinging to his arm. “I don’t like the look of those scratches on the walls…” She pulled her hand only slightly away from him to gesture at the rather large clawmarks down the side of one wall, the wallpaper torn and half the dust from the drywall itself.

“That’s a good thing, in this case,” he replied, gently, gesturing to the floor. It was so easy to forget she had no real idea what was going on. How she had been sheltered from it all enough to have no experience thusfar, he had no idea. She didn’t seem amnesic, but it had also been a decade since the accident - how she’d missed the world breaking and the aftermath they presently lived in was a mystery. “Look at how much dust there is. There’s a lot, yes, but this place hasn’t been disturbed. There’d be footprints if anyone had come in here since the place was locked down. The scratches tell us someone’s been here since the accident, but that much of a struggle would have disturbed all that dust. That was the last time someone was here at all. They got out and didn’t come back, or they died. I’ll put a bet that this place has been sealed since before the accident, which would explain the radiation levels.”

He flashed the monitor on his forearm, allowing her to take a look at the reading. “We can stay here for a bit, but if there’s no food then we’ll have to find a way to keep it contained while being able to leave. This is pretty damn good, as far as we can go.”

She nodded, cleaving back to his arm, and winced, her left hand returning to her stomach. He stopped where he was, turning to her, pulling her in, hands gently on her abdomen. He could feel them move, and pressed his cheek to her forehead. She let out a whimper and moved closer into his chest, waiting for the pain to subside.

When her face cleared, he lifted her gently up, hooking one hand under her thighs and the other behind her shoulders, securing her in his grasp before he started walking again, pushing aside a door with his shoulder. It was unlocked, strangely, and didn’t creak too much as it turned. He greatly disliked having to carry her: it slowed them down, and left them with few weapons but his uncanny ability to sing hearing creatures into a trance. It wasn’t like she was very useful if it came to a territory dispute, and he wouldn’t have asked her anyway, in her condition. It still would’ve been easier if she could reliably walk.

The inner workings of the building were quieter and even less disturbed, the dust remaining mostly at the same two inches of decay. But the walls were drywall and tempered wood, reinforced with steel, and he didn’t think the tower was going to collapse on top of them. It really could have been an office, which meant they probably had a breakroom, or even better, an undisturbed kitchen with emergency supplies. There had been worry of an earthquake, before, and a power outage had meant most everyone had carried supplies. There was little trace of those now, in the decade that had followed, but if nobody had gotten in…

He had been no more than fifteen when the world broke. The house had fallen, and he’d curled up under his desk in the most stable part of his room, and waited for it to end. His father had not been so lucky. Just an earthquake was one thing. How some days he wished it had still been just an earthquake.

Something paler than the walls glittered like glass near a doorway, and he stepped over to it, avoiding two chairs and the remains of a desk. The glow of his fins lit up the small, paper display behind the glass, and sure enough, it was the fire escape plan. Even better, it was labelled. They were standing in the lower level office, and the breakroom - and kitchen - wasn’t far. There was a panic room, too, judging by the arrow to the downward stairs.

“What’s that?” she asked, softly, and she reached up to touch a couple of symbols near the bottom of the paper. He traced his gaze downward towards it, studying it for a moment. A simple dotted-and-straight line, with a diamond in the center, outlined entirely in black. The words marked only ‘Clocktower Station’.

“We’re right above a metro station.” His voice seemed distant, even to him. If he was right… “This… we’re on the fifth floor. This tower goes up fifteen stories, and by the looks of it, the higher floors were residential. We got on through the old fire escape, I think. I haven’t seen an entrance to the metro that might be accessible in _years_. If we can use it… I doubt it’s operational, but it’s a tunnel through that the ravagers might not know about. If… I need a map. There’s got to be a map in here somewhere. Can you walk, do you think?”

She nodded, allowing him to set her on her feet. Her ankles seemed steady enough, which he was glad for. She was more suited to walking barefoot than he was, and yet she was the one who had shoes tailored for her, at one point. After months of travelling together, they were wearing down.

He lead her through until he found what he was sure was the biggest desk still standing, helped her sit down in the chair once he’d found it sturdy enough, and started rifling through the drawers. Most of it was financial supplies and post-it notes, and the drawers were strangely almost dust-free. There wasn’t much that would help, but… One door held pens and paperclips and a few sealed, airtight protein bars. His eyes lit up, the glow of his fins brightening.

“What did you find?” she asked. He pulled one out, flipping it over in his fingers, scanning it for anything that might have contaminated it. It looked completely fine. He held it close to his mouth, tasting the air, finding nothing but plastic foil, nothing that betrayed whether it could have gone bad. He held it out to her like the gold it was. 

“Eat this. I think it’s safe, and you need it.” She hesitated, twisting her hands in anxiety, tail flicking on her thighs.

“You haven’t eaten once in over a day,” she answered, blackberry-flower-coloured eyes bright with strain. She wanted it, he could tell, but she seemed insistent. “You need it more than I do.”

“There’s five here, we can ration them, and you _need_ to eat,” he said, voice flat, flicking the fins that were once his ears back in annoyance. “Eat it. It will help. You need to.”

She hesitated, lifting a hand and pushing the bar back towards him. “I’m not going to last very long if you collapse. You need to eat, too.”

He sighed, deeply, trying not to feel too irritated towards her. She could be so stubborn, sometimes, and he retrieved his hand, pulling the plastic wrapping open. It smelled delicious, and he could almost feel his teeth - five rows of them, now, all sharpened like shark’s teeth - salivate at the scent. He broke a piece off with them, making sure she was watching, and before she could react, he kissed her.

Her mouth opened all but automatically, and he pushed the piece of protein bar into her mouth, drawing back once he felt her start to chew. She glowered at him, and one of his cheeks twitched into the barest shimmer of a smug smile. She folded her arms, careful to not rest them on her stomach, but she was eating, and that was good enough. He held out the rest of the bar, staring her down, mentally daring her to argue with him on this one.

She reached past him instead, pulling out a second bar, and holding it out to him. “You need to eat, too,” she said. “I’ll eat if you do.”

He couldn’t really stop himself from smiling, so they swapped bars, and he pulled the second one open, tasting the air around it for contamination before stuffing it all into his mouth, barely chewing as it went down. She ate slower, taking bites and reaching for his hand to press his palm against her cheek. He leaned in, pressing a kiss to her forehead, pushing her bangs out of the way.

“We need to seal ourselves back in, make sure the radiation doesn’t find its way in here,” he said, straightening up. “Stay here, take the time to rest. If you can find a map in the room, that would be great. See if… Just stay within sight, okay?” She let him go, gently, and nodded silently.

He headed back to the entrance they’d gotten in through. The door was shut, but the radiation levels had inched up on his monitor, and he drew his mask back over his nose. It wasn’t a proper gas mask, but it was all he’d found at all. Earthquake plans had never accounted for the accident. He took a step back, clearing his path to the door, and ran into it, slamming his less-bruised shoulder against it, forcing it closed, stepping back and hitting it a few more times just for good measure.

When he was sure he wasn’t getting it any more closed, he swung his backpack down from between his fins, pulling out what he had left of his carpenter’s putty and his spare knife. It wasn’t much, but if he could seal the doorway… Carpenter’s putty was gold, in these times, and he had gotten far too lucky the last time to get it, and almost died trying. It had been worth it. If they could breathe somewhat all right, not just follow the winds in hopes of staying where there was oxygen… Well, it was worth it and then some.

He opened the canister, slicing free some putty and layering it up against the doorframe, thick without using too much. When he’d gotten all of it in place, he added more, slowly, noticing as the protein bar made its way through his system and his hands slowly stopped shaking. She’d been right when she said he’d needed to eat. She’d just needed it more.

When he was done, he put the canister away, tucking it safely into the bulk of his pack, scanning his work for any imperfections or missed spots. It looked all right, and his monitor wasn’t registering anything new.

He turned back, and headed back into the main room, to find her quietly rifling through a desk he hadn’t noticed before. She looked up as he entered the room, her own mask down around her neck, and she smiled. Her smile was brilliant, brighter than the sun - which he could only remember as a distant dream, now, though he remembered its warmth - and she abandoned her task to step over to him, pressing her face into his chest.

He slipped his arms around her in return, careful not to squish her, feeling the feathers under her heavy, protective clothing. She’d had better quality clothes than he did when he had met her, but they weren’t at all suited to their world, furthering the mystery of where she had come from.

She leaned up more on her toes, and she kissed him. He melted to her touch, opening his mouth slightly, drifting his tongue against the warmth of her lips. She tasted mostly like protein bar, but still heavenly. Still more than dust and danger and ravager.

“I found you a map,” she said, softly, when they broke the kiss. “And I found more food. Even better, someone’s journal in here mentions there’s a community garden not too far from here.”

Her eyes sparkled with delight, as if she’d been hoping her findings would impress him. It was difficult to, for how little she’d actually helped their survival, but she was improving, and if she didn’t know where the line between good ideas and dangerous ones was yet, well, she at least bothered to ask before she went facefirst into danger.

“It’ll depend on where the garden is,” he answered warily. “Best case, there’s cultivators there who can help. Worst case, it’s a ravager trap. Most likely, there isn’t anything left.” Her face fell, eyebrows furrowed. “But a shot’s better than nothing at all,” he added hastily, catching her chin and stealing another kiss. Her arms slipped around his neck and she kissed him back, sinking closer into him.

She had needed his help, originally, and she didn’t look like a trap. Ravagers didn’t use girls like her for bait. He’d taken her with him, and patched her up, and once he realized she had no knowledge whatsoever of the world around her, had resolved to teach her. She knew a fair bit about the world before the accident, but that was a decade ago, and she didn’t look any older than twenty-one. 

He’d felt vaguely like he took advantage of her naivety, sometimes, but even he had to admit she had him ensnared a hell of a lot more than the reverse. He didn’t think he needed her, and she did need him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to adjust his long-term survival plans to include them both.

Her kiss moved deeper, and she locked her arms around his neck, using the desk to pull herself up and wrap her legs around his waist. His hands slipped around her, his grip tightening, supporting her weight. They barely broke the kiss, just for breath, and she kissed him again, barely letting him breathe in before her lips met his and set his heart at a race. He leaned back against the desk, reaching one hand up her spine to her neck, finding her hair and tangling his fingers in the strands.

She broke the kiss again, her eyes bright in the glow of his fins. “I also found what looks like a shower room,” she said.

“Water tank’s not likely to work,” he answered, but the idea of there maybe being supplies - towels weren’t likely, at this point - was, he wasn’t going to lie, pretty good. Her smile remained.

“If there’s even a half-working hydro system, I can make it work,” she answered. “And even if it isn’t, I can probably patch something together.” He raised an eyebrow, genuinely confused. He’d seen hydro systems before, but they had all been in varying states of disrepair so bad they could never be fixed without more resources than anyone in this city had.

“We can take a look, but don’t get your hopes up.” Her smile brightened, and he sighed a little, one fin down and the other up. It felt rather natural to express with them, at this point. “All right, Minos?”

She grinned, and kissed him again in lieu of an answer. He kissed her back, letting her lean into him, crushing their lips together. He reached his tongue out to her mouth, brushing against her lips, feeling her hum against him and shift closer. 

After a few moments, leaning against the table, letting her kiss him in the silence, his breath the only thing he cared to listen for, she broke the kiss, leaning her forehead on his cheekbone. He ran a hand through what of her hair he could reach. “I think we should see about that map and that water system,” he murmured.

She nodded, shifting back down from his arms to the floor, taking a moment to stretch, tail curled outward, her legs still the hind legs of a cat, her arms still birdlike. He thought she might be a griffon, if indeed they could do that. He wasn’t sure, he had gills on his neck and ribs and fins, and more irritatingly poisonous spines that he plucked out of his spine every time they thought about growing there. He didn’t, thankfully, have the colouration of a lionfish, so he wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to be, either.

He had seen few people at all who weren’t ravagers since the accident. And most of them had died, somewhere along the way. He knew there were others, but the risk was too great to seek out others. He’d been ensnared in traps before, and he didn’t much like the idea of repeating what he’d been forced to do to stay alive.

She finished her stretch and offered her hand, which he took, and grabbed the map she’d found off an end table, pulling him with her down a hallway to what was indeed a shower room. There weren’t towels - he didn’t expect there to be - but there were some heavy duty cleaning supplies. He stepped over to the sink, not actually expecting anything to happen, and turned the tap.

“Not going to work,” she said. “I tried already while you were sealing up the doorway. The boiler room is downstairs, though, I didn’t think it’d be safe to go without you.”

He smiled a little. She actually was learning - or at least, she was learning that she had to learn, and was only going to get herself killed going alone. “Probably not. If we’re the only ones here, though, it helps to know where everything is.”

She took his hand again and lead him out and down the stairs. They ignored the elevator - even if the power worked, they weren’t wasting precious electricity when they could walk the distance. If he’d had a tail when he’d grown his fins, a proper mermaid’s tail, he wouldn’t have made it this far anyway. 

The floors they saw looked to be offices as well, mostly open space covered in layers of dust and the only evidence of life once existing here was the remains of animal parts that could last a decade, and claw marks across the walls. Nothing to much be worried about.

They made it to the ground floor. Before Minos could leave the stairwell, he pulled her back. She looked up in alarm as he pulled his mask up, adjusting his goggles, holding out his right arm, monitor first, and stepped across the threshold.

There wasn’t a change in the monitor’s reading, only steady numbers and pulses as it checked the air for anything that wasn’t supposed to be there. He took a shallow, unsteady breath, and lead her slowly through the hall. The windows weren’t even cracked, but outside of them, all there could be was only darkness. “We’re ground level,” he murmured, ever so quietly. 

“Meaning?” she asked, softly, clinging to his arm as she followed him, disturbing the dust.

“Meaning we’re underneath the rubble. I… The deepest settlement I know of is fifteen layers down from the surface, and it’s still a few stories up from ground level. This is where the metal stops and the actual earth begins. The only way out is up, but… If we could find seeds, and if the ground isn’t too bad, we might actually be able to get crops in here. Radiation isn’t too bad, oxygen supply is good… I’m amazed nobody’s gotten in here.” 

It was almost too good to be true, and oh, how he needed the break. She squeezed his arm, and he glanced down at her - her mask was properly covering her mouth and nose and her goggles seemed secure, but she looked happy.

“Do you know how to garden?” she asked. “I’ve tried, but I’m really, really bad at it. I’m not a person who grows things.”

He caught her wink, and smiled. “And yet here you are, growing something wonderful,” he teased, gently. As far as he could tell, she started blushing. “I do know how to garden, yes. My father was a florist, back in the day… If I can get resources, I can make something work.”

“There’s got to be something growing around here, then,” she answered, nodding. He lead her onwards, and finally, the only thing separating them from the boiler room was a padlock. 

Minos glowered. “I think I’d rather just take a hole out of the wall,” she muttered, eyeing it. He rolled his eyes.

“Watch and learn, my love,” he murmured, and knelt down, pulling a hairpin and an allen wrench out of his jacket pocket, stuffing them into the padlock. Within just a few moments, it popped open. He stood up again, smiling, and her face lit up as he pushed the door open, holding his monitor out before he allowed either of them through.

Once allowed in, Minos stepped into the centre of the room, turned a slow three-sixty, and immediately headed over to light a small gas lamp, which had a few matches conveniently beside it.

“We need to ration matches, since you’ve found them,” he cautioned. “Getting more is going to be nigh-impossible.”

She nodded, still ignoring him, and hooked the lantern up to the centre of the room, below the light fixture. “Go see to that map,” she said, pulling it from her belt and handing it to him, her eyes focused on the boiler and the electrical system. “You’re the survivalist who’s kept me alive. This took a beating, but I can fix it. You work on the map, find out whatever you need to find out. I’ll get this all working.”

He took the map, smiling, and sunk into a chair on the other side of the room, away from the room’s main functions. He hadn’t even opened it when she screamed.

He was on his feet in a moment, snarling, teeth bared under his mask and his knife already in his left hand. She stepped back, frightened, tail pulled tight around her stomach. He strode to her side, pulling her back with his right, knife in his left. Then he caught sight of what had startled her.

“It’s just bones,” he remarked, softly, relaxing and lowering the knife. “This place has been sealed for a decade. Nothing’s gotten in, nothing’s gotten out. They haven’t really had the chance to decay.”

“S-someone _died_!” she shrieked, stepping back into his chest, apparently finding her only safety there.

“People do that,” he answered grimly. He straightened, sheathing his knife, leaning in to press a kiss to her temple. “Minos… I didn’t really want to ask this, but… What were you doing, before I found you?”

She didn’t answer, eyes locked with the skeleton, whose head looked to be crushed in by falling debris. Whoever they had been, they’d been killed in the accident. He pulled her back, slipping his arms around her, guiding her back to the chair. When he kissed her through their masks, she let him, until finally her breathing started to even out.

“What were you doing, before I found you?” he repeated, slowly kneeling and helping her sit down. She looked up at him, and pulled her mask down again, pushing her goggles up onto her forehead until he could see her face, still grimy from months of travelling in an arid wasteland of a destroyed, once-thriving metropolis.

“Living normally,” she said, quietly. “There was an earthquake, and then a blast. It shattered the biodome of the city, and a lot of people died, but that was… a long time ago. We couldn’t get out. The radiation was too thick, anyone who tried pretty much melted. But we were safe where we were, so we kept going. I wanted… I wanted to help clear the radioactive fog, help us leave the city and see what was left of the world. We did it, at least, or I did it. I managed to cross the radiation, but I couldn’t get back in. I was on my own for about two days before you found me.”

When she reached for his hands, he took hers, pressing them to his lips, and he settled in beside her, pulling her close, letting her lean into his chest. She moved, almost instinctively, into him, until they were so close they might have been one; his arms around her, protecting her.

“You’re from Utopia,” he remarked, and his voice sounded distant even to him. He knew exactly where she’d come from. It had another name, before the accident. But it was surrounded in the thickest radioactive fog he’d ever seen, and the fog was impassible. He hadn’t realized anyone had survived, but the few others he had met told stories of it, said they had protected themselves and created a utopia that the rest of them were never allowed into. It hadn’t ever occurred to him that they’d been trying.

At the very least, it explained why Minos hadn’t the faintest idea how to survive. She’d never needed to. He reached up, brushing her lips with his thumb. She looked up, her eyes blackberry-flower violet and full of what he thought was terror. He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers, stealing a soft kiss that she seemed happy to return.

“It was the old nuclear plant, down in the North End,” he said, quietly, hoping she at least remembered what it had been called before. “The earthquake was the fault line, one of the smaller plates probably submerged, I guess - and the epicenter was too close to the plant. It was the old kind, you know, from the Cold War days when they wanted to make weapons with uranium, and they didn’t use thorium like they’re supposed to now. It ruptured, and they couldn’t contain it, and the earthquake set off the Twin Sister volcanoes, and now we’re here, and everything is hell. Everything has _been_ hell for a decade. I don’t remember the last time I saw the sun.”

Minos squeezed his ribs, pausing when he flinched a little and then moved her hands up to his pectorals, evidently remembering that he had gills there. “I don’t… Not since I was last home,” she said, quietly. “I’m glad I met you.”

He smiled, pressing a kiss to her temple. “We should try and sleep,” he suggested, softly. “The air is clear enough and this may be our only chance for a while. We’ve got a good break, we can afford to wait until we’ve slept a bit to deal with our… roommate.” He gestured mildly to the pile of bones with a fin attached to his thigh. 

She giggled a little, and kissed him, settling down beside him.

“You know where I’m from,” she started, and if he was right on her drift, he really didn’t want to answer. “But I just want to know…”

“No answers on my tragic backstory,” he answered, flicking his fins. “Not today, my love. Not right now.”

She smiled. “I was going to say your _name_ , asshole,” she murmured. “The least you could do is tell me that, or I’m going to call you Mr. Fish for the rest of your life, because you’ve never actually told me who you are.”

He stopped, thought for a moment, and realized she was right. His introduction had indeed consisted of ‘take my hand and run like hell, you can trust me’, and he actually _hadn’t_ told her his name at all. It must’ve slipped his mind, and she hadn’t asked before now.

“Albafica,” he said, and she lit up, repeating his name to herself, like it too, was made of gold. 

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my fiance (for soundboarding and initial excitement), my NaNoWriMo group for letting me bitch about the plotbunnies in November, Jou / Sia for the idea of Fem!Minos, and the Aries Hell Group for their flattering amount of interest yesterday. Hope everyone likes it so far, we're not done yet.


End file.
